December 7
What are they thinking?…who wants to be a killjoy? I am sure I am not the only one who has imbibed when it was absolutely not a good idea for me just because I think that you will think I am a damper on the fun. It’s no fun to overindulge by yourself. I know that I did many of the, shall we call them, not smart (or for that matter, legal) things I did in college rationalizing them by the fact that I was joined by brilliant, successful top of the class pre-med and pre-law students. If they could do this….. Somehow if you do it too, it cancels out my guilt.
Case in point: I remember having this conversation with a client about her drinking – an admitted problem for her. She was insisting that in business she was obligated to drink when her lunch companion drank. She stopped herself dead in the middle of that rationalization one day when she suddenly realized that they smoked too, but because she didn’t want to smoke and had had a torturous time quitting, she wasn’t willing to smoke to make them feel at home.
Here’s something else I know about myself…I am actually more of a damper when I am stuffed to the gills and mad at myself. I think a key for me may be making sure that my holding back is not perceived as a judgment of their behavior. I can figure out how to do that. I really make it a point to never tell anyone I am eating with what I do for work, or I hasten to explain that I am more of a semi-reformed hedonist than a “Nutritionist”. I know what that title implies to me, and I wouldn’t want to eat with one!
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